Sixteen
by Answer
Summary: "And we thought she'd be so happy." Sleeping Beauty one-shot.


I don't understand. My aunts – can I still call them that? I suppose from today it shall have to be Mistresses Flora, Fauna and Merryweather. Is that what a princess would say? I've never even seen a princess, how am I to know? Our princess has been missing for – oh.

They have always been sweet and kind to me – they are the only mothers I have known, and I often thought about how lucky I was. How many young girls have even one mother so doting and kind, to say nothing of three! I had everything I wanted. I danced and I sang – I walked barefoot. Do you suppose princesses may walk barefoot? It seems anything is possible today, but I doubt that. But to be a princess – I can't remember ever wishing for that. Except, of course that – oh, I suppose this is a silly thought now – a princess may marry a prince. To think how I wanted that – even this morning! But everything was different this morning. This morning I was Rose, newly sixteen and happy. Now the name Aurora sticks in my throat, and I'm watching candlelight dance in the crown they gave me, wishing I were home to greet my dream prince, who needn't be a prince at all.

_This one last gift, dear child, for thee -_

_The symbol of thy royalty._

What will my new mother be like? A queen – _our_ queen. I have heard it said that she is beautiful and wise and serves the king – my father – with good counsel. Will beautiful and wise make her a good mother? I am afraid, now. What if I cannot love these people?

What if they cannot love me?

I watch tears find their course down my face, searching my memory. I like to overhear the conversations of strangers and people in our kingdom talk often of the missing princess, of the gifts of song and beauty that were bestowed upon her. My face is no different to that of Briar Rose, the peasant girl who mayn't speak to strangers, and peasant girls have no songs for becoming princesses. Will they want to display these gifts, to place me upon a mantelpiece to be admired by strangers?

_A crown to wear in grace and beauty, as is thy right, and royal duty. _

What do I know about royal duty? How will I ever be able to fulfill it? The kingdom has a ready-made princess and it is good news for everyone but me. There will be a national holiday – a girl called Briar Rose might sit down with her three aunts to a good meal and stories around the fireplace, but not the Princess Aurora. I have no knowledge of anything more than cooking and sewing. Do princesses darn their own stockings? I wouldn't have thought so.

This is more than I know how to handle.

_And we thought she'd be so happy. _

I would never, _ever_ have suspected my aunts of hiding anything from me. I am sure they are the kindest, dearest creatures in the kingdom. Yet they concealed it from me for sixteen years – and now, here I am, a princess in love with a dream and betrothed to a prince. I make a wish. I wish that something would come, now, before they come back, before I become a spectacle. I wish that I might disappear, that I might be taken away for good into a world of dreams, where no truths or surprises may hurt me.

I wish so hard that a doorway appears in the fireplace and, without a second thought, I step through.

There is a staircase and I climb it. Something wants me to, something wants me to climb, to follow. I will not – cannot refuse. I have never refused. I climb.

_Maleficent!_

My aunts' voices – are they worried? They needn't be. I am fine – happy. I am obeying.

And what is 'Maleficent'? I know it, yet cannot quite place it. Strange.

_Rose, Rose! _

Oh, the poor dears! They worry so about me – as though any harm will come to me here, in the home of my parents! And why do they call out 'Rose'? It is Aurora, now, don't they remember? I will stop and wait, to show them that I am...

Yet I cannot stop. I cannot turn – cannot even call out to them. I simply... climb.

_Where are you? Where are you? _

I don't know! Aunt Flora, Aunt Fauna, Aunt Merryweather – I'm frightened!

_Don't touch anything! _

I thought the staircase would never end, but it does, in a little room that seems dark and empty at first, but slowly, _magically_, something appears. A wheel? A wheel in a stand with a great pointed thing sticking out of the top.

It's a spindle. How do I know that?

_**Touch the spindle. Touch it, I say! **_

And I want to. I want to feel it on the pad of my finger, want to taste its sharpness, want to... want to...

_**Before the sun sets...**_

A princess can do whatever she wants, can't she?


End file.
